A Price to Pay

Grimshaw opened the evidence bag containing the wallet and started leafing through it.

He let out a heartfelt groan. ‘You are never going to believe who it is.’

Chapter 2

The two young masseuses who had found the body were huddled together in the rear of a police van, tears streaking their faces. Their bloodstained work uniforms had already been taken by the CSIs, but even in the less than flattering replacement coveralls that they’d been issued, Warren could see that Grimshaw had a point. The two young women were very pretty, with shapely figures. Could they have been hired for their looks?

A detailed, formal interview would have to wait, as there were currently no Serbian translators available; however, the limited English that they spoke was enough to confirm the sequence of events as relayed by Grimshaw.

The owner of the parlour, Silvija Wilson, was a well-dressed, middle-aged woman. She had arrived in a brand-new Mini Clubman shortly after Warren emerged from the crime scene and was waiting impatiently outside the cordon.

‘Are my girls OK?’ she asked immediately. Her accent was almost pure Essex, with just a hint of Eastern European.

‘They are a bit shaken, but physically they are fine,’ Warren assured her.

‘Thank goodness.’

‘The women tell me that they’re Serbian nationals,’ said Warren.

‘With valid work visas,’ Wilson interrupted.

‘I’m sure that they are here perfectly legally,’ said Warren, ‘however, without a translator, they haven’t been able to fully answer my questions.’

‘Would you like me to translate for you, to speed things up?’ interrupted Wilson.

Warren smiled politely. ‘That’s very kind, but we’re better off waiting for the translation service.’

She looked disappointed, but Warren knew better than to take her up on her offer. Given the circumstances, Wilson could hardly be considered unbiased and the last thing he wanted was for questions to be raised over the veracity of the translation.

‘Why don’t I just ask you some background?’ he suggested.

Wilson nodded her assent.

‘You are the owner, I take it?’

‘Yes. I started the business from scratch about ten years ago.’

‘And you are the manager?’

‘Overall, yes.’

‘Is it usual for you not to be present during the day?’ Warren raised a placating hand as Wilson started to bristle. ‘I’m not judging, Ms Wilson, I’m just trying to get a feel for the normal ebb and flow of staff and customers.’

She relaxed somewhat. ‘I come and unlock in the morning and do a bit of paperwork. Except on Saturday, which is our busiest day. I let the girls get on with running the shop. They know what they are doing.’

‘That’s rather trusting, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘They’re family from back in Belgrade. They are my sister’s daughters. I sponsored them for a work visa and they joined me a little over twelve months ago, with the aim of learning a skill and improving their English.’

‘How is that going?’ asked Warren.

She gave a so-so gesture with her hand. ‘They are very skilful at massage and the customers really like them, but the English … not so good. I had intended them to spend time socializing with English people, but we do have a small Serbian community here, with some rather good-looking boys …’ She shrugged. ‘They’re young. What can I say?’

‘And do you still see clients?’

‘Only a few. I have a couple of older ladies who got to know me when I worked on the other side of town. They came with me when I set up this business and they’re more like friends than clients.’

‘So, you weren’t in the shop earlier, when the attack happened?’

‘No. I opened up at the usual time – half-past eight – then emptied the safe of the weekend’s takings and did a bank run, before going to see my father-in-law. He’s not very well and in a home.’

‘You take the money to the bank yourself?’ asked Warren.

‘Not much choice, really. We’re a small business; we can’t afford Securicor to come and do it for us. To be honest, there isn’t that much cash these days. Most clients pay by card.’

‘So, there wouldn’t have been much money on the premises at the time of the attack?’

‘No. Monday’s a quiet day usually, so aside from the float in the till there wouldn’t have been very much.’

‘I see that it’s also a nail bar. Do Malina and Biljana also do nails?’

Wilson shook her head.

‘No. We have a couple of girls who come and do that. They hire the space; I don’t actually employ them.’

‘Where were they today?’

‘They weren’t in. Monday is a quiet day.’

‘So, the only members of staff in the shop at the time were your two nieces?’

‘Yes. As I said, I was visiting my father-in-law in Stenfield. Look, can I go and speak to them? They must be absolutely terrified after what’s happened.’

‘Yes, of course.’

There came a tap on the door: Shaun Grimshaw.

‘Just got off the phone from HQ. No registered Serbian speakers available until eleven o’clock tonight.’

Warren sighed and looked at his watch. Be careful what you wish for indeed; if he’d stayed to the end of the budget meeting, he’d probably be heading home for the evening by now.

It looked as though Susan would be dining alone again.

Back at the station, Warren held the first briefing of the case. It was eight p.m., and a lot had happened in the almost seven hours since the emergency services received the call reporting the killing. He was keen to keep up the momentum; crimes such as murder were often solved by actions taken in those first few hours.

Warren would hold a far more detailed briefing the following morning, but it was important that he bring everyone – including his superior, Detective Superintendent John Grayson – up to date, as well as introducing his rapidly growing team to one another.

Middlesbury CID was something of an outlier in Hertfordshire Constabulary, in all senses of the word. The consolidation of nearly all of the serious crime units in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and later Cambridgeshire into one, centralized headquarters down in Welwyn Garden City had led to the closing of most local CID units.

Warren’s predecessor, the disgraced DCI Gavin Sheehy, had fought the case for Middlesbury to remain open as a first-response unit, able to deal quickly and effectively with low-level crime within the farthest reaches of the county, and at least start the ball rolling on larger-scale investigations. To that end, DSI Grayson oversaw a small, core team of detectives, led by Warren, with additional support from Welwyn when needed.

Since taking over from Sheehy four years previously, Warren had made it one of his priorities to maintain Middlesbury’s unique status, growing to love a role that saw him doing far more hands-on policing than would be normal for one of his rank.

Thus far, the small unit’s disproportionately high success rate had kept them open in the face of ever-increasing government cuts.

For now.

Warren started the briefing with a full-screen headshot of the man in the massage parlour projected onto the screen.

‘This is our victim. Stevie Cullen, the twenty-three-year-old son of one of North Hertfordshire’s most notable families. For those of you not familiar with the Cullens, “most notable” is not a praiseworthy term.’

Nods rippled around the room.

‘That’s a mugshot from his last arrest, and we positively identified him from his fingerprints and the tattoos covering his chest. Needless to say, the car that his keys unlocked is not registered to him, rather it belongs to his brother, as Stevie received his first driving ban before he was even old enough to pass his test. His mobile phone has a screen lock that IT are figuring out how to circumvent as we speak.’

Warren let the mutterings die down before he continued.

‘We need to turn his life upside down, folks. This was clearly a targeted killing. Given the circles that the Cullens are alleged to move in, then that must be a primary line of investigation. The Serious Organized Crime Unit from Welwyn will be briefing us on what we know or suspect about the Cullens’ business interests tomorrow. In the meantime, we need to track his movements over the past few days, as well as finding out who was in the area at the time.

‘Jorge, can you fill us in on any witnesses located in the local area and the preliminary search?’

DS Jorge Martinez addressed the room.

‘It won’t take long, I’m afraid. Despite being a Monday lunchtime, we haven’t found a single member of the public who witnessed the killer escaping the scene or recalls anyone suspicious hanging around. There are a number of small businesses in the area with inadequate parking, and public transport is poor, so residents are used to seeing strange cars parked in their streets. The lack of parking wardens enforcing resident-only parking is a long-running bone of contention amongst the locals.

‘We’ve identified a dozen or so properties, both business and residential, that may have usable CCTV footage of the area and we’re securing it for DS Richardson’s team to look at.’

‘Any discarded clothes or the murder weapon?’ asked DS David Hutchinson.

‘Nothing so far. We’ve emptied all the public waste bins in the vicinity, and we’ve secured the wheelie bins from all the local residents and businesses. First thing tomorrow, when the sun comes up, we’ll have teams doing a fingertip search of all the local streets.’

‘Any rumblings on social media yet?’ asked Warren.

DS Rachel Pymm, the team’s officer in the case – the person charged with keeping the HOLMES2 case management database up to date – shook her head.

‘Nothing much so far. A few photographs have surfaced on Twitter of the cordon, with plenty of speculation about what has happened, but nobody has mentioned Stevie Cullen yet.’

‘Good,’ said Warren, ‘his loved ones don’t deserve to find out he’s dead from some bigmouth on Facebook.’

Chapter 3

It’s known as the ‘death knock’ by both journalists and the police. It was an aspect of policing that Warren rarely had to do these days, his rank largely shielding him from the duty. However, given the history of the Cullen family, he decided to accompany the family liaison team himself. He wanted to hear what the family had to say first-hand; to pick up those tiny nuances and signals that might not get passed on in the reports.

The Cullen family lived in a ramshackle farmhouse on the very outskirts of Middlesbury. Surrounded by fields, the car headlights had revealed a yard full of clusters of stacked Portakabins and shipping containers, locked behind large, steel gates. Warren’s nose alerted him to the presence of pigs.

Lots of pigs.

Mrs Cullen opened the door. Spotting the uniformed officer standing behind him, she scowled.

‘What?’

‘Mrs Cullen?’

‘Yeah.’

‘We’d like to speak to you about your son Stevie …’

‘He ain’t here.’

She started to close the door. Warren slipped a foot between the door and the frame.

‘Hey, you can’t do that. You need a warrant …’ she yelped.

‘We need to speak to you about your son. May we come in?’ Warren paused. ‘Is your husband in? Is there anyone who can be with you?’

The blood drained from her face and for a moment he thought she would faint. He readied himself to catch her.

‘Seamus! It’s the police.’ Her voice was surprisingly strong.

A muffled voice replied from the depths of the house. ‘Tell them to piss off.’

‘It’s about Stevie. Oh God …’

Seamus Cullen emerged from the rear of the house, wiping his hands on a greasy rag.

He stopped dead in his tracks. Whether it was the grim expression on Warren’s face, the family liaison officer holding his cap respectfully in his hands, or his wife’s look of distress that told them why they were there was unclear. Either way, it was Seamus Cullen whose knees buckled and left him grabbing the staircase for support.

Coffee and a sit-down returned most of the colour to Seamus Cullen’s face. Seated opposite the couple, Warren gently told them what they knew so far.

Facing them, it was hard to reconcile the family’s reputation with the couple in front of him. Like most police officers in this part of the county, Warren was well aware of the family’s reputation; however, he had never personally dealt with them. Most of their transgressions came under volume crime, particularly the fencing of stolen property, and antisocial behaviour, with health and safety violations and a carefree attitude to tax returns thrown in as well.

The family’s nearest neighbours were almost a mile away, but Stevie Cullen in particular was still the subject of numerous complaints about noise, riding quad bikes dangerously, and using threatening and intimidating behaviour. It was behaviour he’d learnt from his parents.

None of that was evident at this moment; gone were the hard edges and defiant attitude towards authority. The couple in front of him had lost a child, in the most horrific of circumstances, and their grief was all-consuming.

‘It looks as though the attack was deliberate. Can you think about anyone who might have wanted to hurt or kill Stevie?’

Rosie Cullen shook her head firmly. ‘No. He wasn’t involved with anything like that.’

It was interesting that she’d immediately assumed he was killed due to something he had done.

‘Can you think of anyone who he might have had a falling out with?’

This time it was Seamus who answered. ‘Boys will be boys, and he sometimes liked a row after a few pints down the White Stag, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill him. Especially, you know so …’ He stopped, unable to continue.

Warren made a note to question the locals down the White Stag.

‘What about friends or acquaintances? Is there anyone that Stevie was particularly close to?’

The couple glanced at each other. It was clear they were reluctant to point the police in the direction of any of their associates. That was hardly surprising, given the circles they moved in, but if Warren was going to solve their son’s brutal murder and bring his killers to justice, then he needed all of the help he could get.

He said as much.

After a long pause, Rosie started to dictate the names of as many of Stevie’s friends as she could recall.

‘What about anyone special?’

Rosie paused. ‘No chance. That boy was far too young to settle down. He played the field.’

Seamus said nothing, biting his lip.

‘Mr Cullen?’ prompted Warren.

‘Well there was this one girl he was quite keen on. He saw her more than most …’ His voice petered out at his wife’s surprised stare.

‘Who?’ she asked.

‘Vicki Barclay.’

‘What? That stuck-up blonde one from the Stag? She’s far too posh for the likes of our boy. I haven’t seen her around for what, six months? Besides, I thought she was engaged to that Rimington lad.’

‘I’m just going by what he said to me.’

Warren made a note of all the names flying around. He recognized a few of them from the briefing reports that crossed his desk; they weren’t exactly fine and upstanding citizens. However, the couple weren’t telling him everything; that much was certain. Warren knew that he’d need to tread carefully.

‘What can you tell me about what Stevie did for a living?’

‘He helped out on the farm.’ His mother’s tone was firm. The couple moved closer together on the sofa.

‘Did he do any other work, or have business dealings with anyone else?’

‘He was a farmhand. That’s all.’ Her tone was icy. Beside her, her husband’s face took on a mask.

They were circling the wagons. Their son was dead, and nothing would bring him back. Now it was all about self-preservation.

Warren knew that what he said next was not going to go down well.

‘Would it be all right if we looked at Stevie’s room?’

Again, it was his mother who replied. ‘No. He’s dead. I’m not having you trampling all over his room, disturbing his things.’

‘I promise you that we’ll be very respectful, and we’ll leave everything the way we found it.’

‘No. And I think it’s time you left. Leave us alone to mourn our boy.’

Seamus got to his feet. ‘I’ll show you out.’

Warren tried to reason with them one more time. ‘Please, Mr and Mrs Cullen. Your son’s death was not an accident. We need your help to find his killer and bring them to justice. There may be clues in his room that will help us track down who did this to your son.’

Clues that might disappear when his parents went through his belongings to remove anything that might incriminate them.

‘Not without a warrant,’ said Rosie, her tone final.

Warren cursed himself all the way back to the station. He should have known the Cullens wouldn’t let him search the house without a warrant. Given the family’s reputation, it was entirely predictable that they wouldn’t let anyone poke around their affairs; goodness knows what they would find. They’d even shunned the presence of the family liaison officer.

As Warren had driven down the driveway, he’d seen the upstairs lights in the farmhouse come on. He’d bet good money that both parents were busy tearing through their late son’s room removing anything incriminating.

DSI Grayson was waiting for Warren in the station car park, the necessary paperwork clutched in his hand. He said nothing as he handed it through the open car window, but Warren could feel the disapproval radiating off him. Warren was heading back towards the Cullens’ farmhouse in less than thirty seconds.

In the twenty minutes it had taken Warren to race back to Middlesbury and get the warrant, the driveway outside the Cullens’ house had gained several new cars. Despite the frustration of the past few minutes, Warren was relieved. Leaving aside the parents’ obstructive attitude, they had just received a terrible shock – they needed their family and friends with them now. Nevertheless, Warren intended to make a note of every licence plate he saw; he’d like to know who he was dealing with.

Warren pulled into the same spot he’d occupied moments before. Beside him, the family liaison officer, who’d maintained a diplomatic silence for the past few minutes, straightened his shirt as he stepped out of the car. It was just as well that the driveway was so large – there were several more cars and vans on their way, including a scenes of crime unit.

‘Back again.’

It wasn’t a question. Rosie Cullen didn’t even glance at the document in his hand. The twenty minutes’ delay had clearly been enough. Again, Warren cursed himself; who knew what vital clues were now locked away in the boots of the various cars sitting outside, safely beyond the scope of the hastily arranged warrant.

Chapter 4

The Serbian translator arrived shortly before eleven p.m. Warren had just returned to the station again. When he’d left the Cullens’ farm, a team had been searching Stevie’s room for clues. The family liaison officer had finally been allowed to do his job and was now arranging support for the Cullens over the coming days and weeks.

The newcomers had been identified as members of the sprawling Cullen family. All of them professed shock at their brother’s death and described a universally beloved man entirely at odds with the intelligence reports Warren had skimmed through earlier that day. Warren had arranged more detailed one-on-one interviews with all of them over the coming days to see if that assessment changed out of earshot of the rest of the family.

The translator was a middle-aged woman by the name of Neda Stojanović, dressed in a flowing tie-dyed dress. She shook Warren’s hand as she apologized for being unable to arrive sooner.

‘The only other available translator actually lives in Middlesbury. Given the close-knit local community, the agency thought it best that they send someone from farther afield.’

Warren thanked her. Police translators were registered and vetted by Language Line; nevertheless, he didn’t want any potential conflicts of interest this early in the investigation. If and when the case came to trial, the last thing he wanted was the veracity of the witnesses’ translation being called into question by a defence solicitor.

He decided to start with the younger of the two masseuses, Biljana, who had witnessed the stabbing. Known to everyone as Billy, the dark-haired nineteen-year-old looked tired, the adrenalin from the attack having worn off hours ago.

After explaining that she wasn’t under arrest, but that the interview was being video-recorded to ensure that others could check that the translation was accurate, Warren started with a few easy questions to get them all used to the three-way conversation.

‘What time did you start work this morning, Billy?’

‘About eight-thirty. Aunty Silvija picked Malina and me up from our house on the way to work.’

‘Malina is your sister, correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened after you were picked up?’

‘We got the shop ready and put on our uniforms. Aunty Silvija counted the money from the safe and got it ready to take to the bank. Then we put the open sign on the door.’

‘What time was this?’

‘About nine o’clock.’

‘When did Silvija go to the bank?’

‘She had a cup of coffee first. Maybe nine-thirty?’ She took a sip of water.

‘Did you have many clients booked in for the day?’

She shook her head. ‘No, Monday is a quiet day. We had Mrs Green booked in, and that was all for the morning.’

‘What about Mr Cullen?’

‘He was booked in at one p.m.’

‘That’s not a lot of customers. I’m surprised that you open if there are so few customers.’

‘Silvija says that if we start closing during the week, it sends the wrong message and that we’ll lose our Saturday clients, because they think we are going to close.’

It didn’t sound like a very sound business model to Warren. He wondered just how financially viable the shop was. He made a note to look into that further, in case it was relevant.

‘How many staff were there when Silvija left for the bank?’

She thought for a moment. ‘Two. Me and Malina.’

‘What about the nail technicians?’

‘Monday is a quiet day; they weren’t in.’

‘Sounds like it can be a bit boring.’

She shrugged. ‘Sometimes. But we can do some study and talk to our friends and family on Facebook.’

‘What time did Mr Cullen arrive for his appointment? Was he on time?’

‘About ten to one. He was a little bit early.’ Her eyes were starting to fill with tears.

‘And where were you when he arrived?’

‘I was in the room, getting it ready.’

‘Ready how?’

‘Lighting the scented candles, dimming the lights, and fetching the towels and oils.’

‘Then what happened?’

Her lip trembled, and her eyes took on a faraway cast. ‘He came in and took off his clothes.’

‘Were you present then?’

‘No. We give customers privacy. When I came back, he was in his underwear lying on the bed, with a towel across his waist.’

‘On his front or his back?’

‘On his front. I always start with a shoulder massage, then do his back.’

‘You’ve had Mr Cullen as a client before?’

She nodded, the gathering tears now threatening to fall down her face.

‘After you had finished with his back, what did you do next?’

‘He rolled over and I loosened his leg muscles, before giving him a head and scalp massage.’

‘Then what?’

‘He likes to relax afterwards. Sometimes he falls asleep, so I turn the lights down and leave him in there.’

‘What time was that?’

She shrugged. ‘The massage takes about thirty minutes or so. I wasn’t wearing my watch.